KFPE Session at the UNGA 77 Science Summit - Research and implementation organisations: do we need to define another actor in the SD landscape?

The Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute (Swiss TPH) and the Swiss Commission for Research Partnerships with Developing Countries (KFPE), have recently mapped and assessed organizations with both a strong research mandate and a regular stream of project implementation and related activities, e.g., designing, implementing and/or evaluating programmes. Such “Research and Implementation Organizations” (RIOs), were assessed first in Switzerland and then in 13 African partner countries aiming to obtain information on the structure and positioning of RIOs within the sustainable development (SD) actors’ landscape and to assess their strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. Currently − as a complementary aspect of this work − we are capturing the perspective of selected funders of RIOs.

Our hypothesis is that having a definition of (i) RIOs; (ii) the gap that they are filling within the spectrum of SD actors; and (iii) the types of projects they are best suited to carry forward, would allow to better instrumentalise them for the advancement of the 2030 Agenda. The objective of the session is to utilize the discussion with the audience and their input to validate and, if necessary, adjust our conclusions pertaining to i-iii.